Paradox
by Patrick-Henry
Summary: Because he knows what it is to bear the mark of Cain. Emmet/Jasper oneshot.


**Disclaimer:** Twilight is mine, cuz' Stephenie Meyer could never write anything _this_ amazing.

I wish. Kudos goes to SM, duh.

* * *

In the beginning, Jasper and Emmett are never really friends.

_They like each other,_ Esme decides, whispering her worries to Carlisle, the way she always wanted to when her husband was a man who didn't listen to a woman's murmurs.

(Grief is sparkly now, but Esme's shiny eyes can find it.)

_It's just,_ but she can't phrase it, so she turns over and lets Carlisle breathe a calm dawn.

_Give them time,_ he tells a makeshift mother, speaking the patience and irony of centuries that will never run out.

They are both vampires. Brothers and brethren and all that.

* * *

They are both power.

But Emmett is a landslide, unstoppable, loud, and Jasper is a lightning bolt and a snakebite, measured, deadly, instant.

They are both strong, but Emmett is wrestling and football, games; Jasper is a soldier, death and loyalty with a crisp salute.

Emmett is brave and blustering, talking out an open door, but to Jasper honor was nothing and is now only the pain of a burning throat and abstinence. Strength and speed exist only in killers; the ones who loose, _second-best_, are already piles of ash in Jasper's eyes.

* * *

Finally, Jasper is a soldier because he doesn't _want_ to fight anymore.

He realizes that war is pointless centuries too late. When he looks on to his eager brother, regret rises like bile in his throat.

_Something real, Emmett can only anticipate this_- bitter.

The one who can taste emotion knows denial, and stops bothering to lie that he isn't jealous.

Emmett is the life that was taken from him.

* * *

While Emmett stalks his first prey in a dark alley, he stops thinking without degrees.

Still everything is measured in strength. But now he sees there is more than and there is other besides the biggest, strongest, and best. The world holds those lower than _weak_.

His muscle- _the one good thing about being a vampire_- is a curse spoken in the broken limbs of a child.

Nothing could have prepared him for this; the horror and _blood tastes so-_

Now brawn is transcended, and a purity Emmett with these stained eyes can never reach is his new goal.

Now Emmett is afraid to measure himself.

* * *

Of course Jasper smells fear; he is accustomed to it.

He used to grow it tenderly. He needed others to be afraid of him, and now he is fearful to survive only on happiness.

(Because the rush of power was just enough to block out the gurgle of blood.)

Fear makes a satisfying climate, one that he can inhale and rule over. Fear is steady, straighter and stronger than calm. Fear he can understand.

Because Jasper is afraid of so many things (_love_) and when emotion is crushing, he feels it vicariously, double.

He can't pretend not to feel any sadistic pleasure when he tastes Emmett's hatred, regret, and dread.

For once, a real emotion, a dark feeling belongs to somebody else.

* * *

When they come together, it is whispers and bandages.

Jasper holds his raw, worn-down edges, patience and innocence scarred with the marks of heavy battle.

Emmett was far from perfect, but now he is a killer. Worse, now he is _weak_; he couldn't resist.

Because they are both very broken.

But all men know battle, the vanquisher can only end the last battle with defeat, fear and temptation and guilt make a man stronger.

As Jasper and Emmett look at each other and know, they vow to end the pointless competition they've both tried to hide.

* * *

Emmett's red eyes pierce the scars, and Jasper knows why Emmett came to him.

(Because he knows what it is to bear the mark of Cain.)

Carlisle's white forgiveness, Rose's love and kisses, Esme's sympathy- these will mock him every day while the red eyes of an accuser bore holes in their white home, all wrong.

Jasper speaks roughly; bites on his pale skin go unhidden. Emmett needs to be put down before he can rise up.

Fragmented men help one another to their feet.

They wonder _did it really take the death of a child to bring us close like we never would have been?_

The monster exalts, and shame struggles to the surface.

* * *

**A/N: **I wanted to try something different, all raw emotion. I played with present tense; I fooled around with formatting- italics and parentheses. I like contradictions. They're pretty. R&R.

**P.S.** I know I haven't updated anything in a waaaaaay too long, but I'm working on it 24/7, I swear. This one just popped into my head, and I had a piece of paper...


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